Obama Sidesteps Congress by Offering ‘No Child’ School Waivers to States

By John Hechinger and Roger Runningen -
Sep 23, 2011

President Barack Obama said his
administration will let states sidestep the No Child Left Behind
law if they commit to higher standards to improve their schools.

States that sign on to Obama’s agenda will get waivers from
the law’s 2014 deadline for reaching 100 percent proficiency on
standardized state reading and math exams, according to a White
House plan.

Obama, who advocated for the waivers in a speech at the
White House today, has pledged to fix the 9-year-old law, saying
its focus on requiring testing proficiency hamstrings teachers,
dumbs down learning and labels even high-achieving schools as
failing. Because Congress hasn’t changed the law, the Education
Department will ease some of its requirements, Obama said.

“Given that Congress cannot act, I am acting,” Obama said.
“Our kids only get one shot at a decent education. They cannot
afford to wait any longer.”

Without providing details, Education Secretary Arne Duncan
indicated in June that the administration was likely to offer a
waiver program in exchange for states’ adopting then-unspecified
elements of the administration’s agenda.

It gives Duncan “sweeping authority to handpick winners and
losers,” Kline said in a statement. “This sets a dangerous
precedent, and every single American should be extremely wary.”

The waiver plan could damage congressional efforts to
change No Child Left Behind, said Kline and Senator Mike Enzi,
the Wyoming Republican who is the Senate education committee’s
ranking member. Those plans include bills promoting the growth
of charter schools -- privately run public schools -- and
cutting spending by eliminating half the federal education
programs under current law. The charter-school bill passed the
House on Sept. 13.

About 45 governors support the waiver plan, Duncan said
this month. Prodded by the education secretary, 44 states and
the District of Columbia have adopted a set of academic
standards proposed by the nation’s governors and school chiefs.
To get waivers, states must adopt such standards, as well as tie
teacher evaluation to student achievement and pledge to turn
around failing schools.

‘Patchwork Approach’

In a statement, Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat who heads the
Senate education committee, said the waiver plan is a “patchwork
approach, rather than a national solution,” though “the best
temporary solution available” until Congress rewrites the law.

By offering to eliminate key parts of No Child Left Behind,
Obama’s approach amounts “to changing the law, not just waiving
it,” said Chester E. Finn Jr., who served as an assistant
secretary in the Education Department under President Ronald
Reagan. The plan could benefit Obama in an election year by
enabling him to oppose a “do-nothing” Congress while appealing
to parents and teachers who object to the law, Finn said.

“The changes themselves -- at least their timing and high-
profile release -- are motivated at least as much by election-
year political considerations as by policy,” Finn, president of
the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington education research
organization, said in a statement.

‘Rigorous Interventions’

No Child Left Behind, signed into law in 2002, is former
President George W. Bush’s signature education initiative.
Officially called the Elementary and Secondary Education Act,
the law requires schools to show that all students are
proficient on state standardized reading and math tests by 2014.
Schools also must demonstrate yearly progress toward that goal
or risk losing federal money.

States receiving waivers would be released from those
requirements. They would also have access to about $1 billion in
federal money now reserved for other purposes under No Child
Left Behind, according to the White House.

To get waivers, states would have to agree to institute
“rigorous interventions” to turn around the lowest-performing 5
percent of schools. An additional 10 percent of schools -- those
with low graduation rates or poor performance among groups such
as minorities or students with disabilities -- would receive
more modest interventions. States will also be expected to
reward the highest-achieving schools serving poor students.

Other countries are outpacing the U.S. in education,
requiring the administration to take action now to maintain the
nation’s competitiveness, Obama said in his speech.

“We can’t let another generation of young people fall
behind because we didn’t have the courage to recognize what
doesn’t work, admit it, and replace it with something that
does,” Obama said. “We’ve got to act now.”